For Isabelle Beuttell Dayton, painting is an act of faith in the visual world. Painting affirms the primacy and splendor of the here and now. Light bathes the world with sensual and psychological immediacy.

Like the Impressionists, Monet and Renoir, upon whom she draws inspiration, Isabelle (as she is know professionally) paints with an opulent palette of broken color, depicting the effect of sunlight on the surfaces of objects. Isabelle paints both single figures and parents with children relating to each other and to the natural world. Rather than family portraits, these are meditations upon the tender, human mystery of relationships.

While highly individual, the figures are distinguishable by gesture and attitude, rather than facial expression. The natural interaction of her figures creates small, telling dramas of ordinary life. Isabelle deploys her players in timeless and evocative settings, the seashore and the garden.

Color and sensation are heightened under a brilliant sun. The sea looms behind mother and children as they walk and comb the beach for nature's treasures. There is the sense that we are witnessing intimate, unselfconscious moments where nothing but life itself is happening. Isabelle celebrates a world which provides both painter and subject an abundance of such simple pleasures.